Monthly Archives: November 2009

Episode Overview-

Hey everyone,

Episode #44 is up for your listening pleasure and boy is it a doozy! It clocks in at just under 42 minutes! Yikes! Episode #44 is kind of a unique episode because it features a recording of a live event. Back on November 14th I was lucky enough to attend the Powering Up with Technology Conference in Prince George’s County Maryland. At that conference I presented a session called Alternative Professional Development. I use the term “presented” loosely because, although I was listed as the presenter, the session was more of an integrated brainstorming session. I was more of the moderator for the discussion than a presenter. During the session we tried to outline some of the common problems with staff development happening in public schools and then try to come up with some solutions. During the course of the discussion a bunch of great ideas were mentioned about how to address some of the problems with the typical professional development model. Furthermore, a number of concrete resources are mentioned that can be used to assist students. You can access the entire presentation as generated by the audience here: Alternative Professional Development Presentation from PUWT09.

The episode also features a bumper from Robin Lesht who is a speech-language pathologist from Mount Prospect, Illinois. I met Robin at ATIA 09 where we shared different experiences working in the field of speech-language pathology.

A.T.TIPS In This Episode-

A.T.TIP #67: Document Holder from Inverted CD case and Alligator Clip

Many a student has strained their neck transposing a handwritten assignment onto the computer because the paper was flat on the desk. To alleviate the neck strain people started to use document holders so that they didn’t have to constantly shift their field of vision from the paper to the screen and back again. Sure, you could go out and spend money on a fancy, commercial document holder or you could take an unused CD case that you probably have lying around, flip it over so the hinged cover is upright and then fasten the paper to it with an alligator clip. Done and done, instant document holder.

This website provides over 1000 pre-made lessons/presentations on a wide variety of curricular topics. The media-rich presentations are similar to a PowerPoint presentation and each one is available to be viewed online via your web browser. Each presentation is useful as a pre-learning activity where students could be asked to independently review content before a class discussion, as an alternative source of content to complement or supplement another lesson, or as a follow-up/review activity at the end of a lesson.

This website allows you to create an animated talking head. Use text-to-speech or record a voice to have the voki speak the message. Vokis could be used by a teacher to introduce a lesson, give verbal instructions for an assignment, record reminders to students, provide feedback and more! Vokis could be used by a student as an alternative means of expression for presentations, practicing conversations, or demonstrating knowledge. Check out these ideas on how to use Voki in your classroom from The Edublogger.

This website allows you to upload a picture, select a portion of that picture that will move (usually a mouth), and then record a message. When the message is played back, the selected area will move in time with the message. Blabberize can be used in similar ways as Vokis. It could be used by a teacher to introduce a lesson, give verbal instructions for an assignment, record reminders to students, provide feedback and more! It could be used by a student as an alternative means of expression for presentations, practicing conversations, or demonstrating knowledge.

Additional Resources Mentioned-

4. www.delicious.com – Social Bookmarking Site. Note that the A.T.TIPSCAST uses delicious to share resources on the left side of the page.

5. www.Prezi.com – A new and interesting way to create a presentation. Information is presented on one large canvas and you zoom into different areas of the canvas to view the information.

6. www.tinyurl.com – A useful way of making long URLs shorter. Shortened URLs are easier for users to remember (like www.tinyurl.com/nlsstories) and easier for people to type in if entering a URL from a piece of paper.

7. Tonyvincent.info – A link library of useful educational resources created by the keynote speaker of the conference, Tony Vincent. **Corrected from original post- Tony made a comment below sharing that the site he used to present at the conference was http://tonysite.info ***

8. Radio WillowWeb Podcast – Radio WillowWeb is a podcast for kids
and by kids from the students at Willowdale Elementary School in Omaha, Nebraska.Each new show is called a Willowcast. Each Willowcast can be heard on WillowWebas an mp3 digital audio file.

9. ASHA Podcast - The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s podcast features interviews with different individuals making strides in the field of speech-language pathology and audiology

10. Quick Access Toolbar in Word 07 – Microsoft Word 07 features a quick access toolbar that can be customized, allowing for favorite tools to be shown and less used tools to be hidden. This feature helps to reduce clutter on the screen while highlighting to students some key/important features they could be using in Word.

Episode Overview-

Hey everyone,

Episode #43 is up for your listening pleasure! Episode #43 features some more feedback from listeners of the show. There was still too much feedback to fit it all into just this episode so you can expect to hear at least one more Listener Feedback episode in the future.

A.T.TIPS In This Episode-

The focus of the Classroom Acoustic Coalition Facebook group is to bring about awareness about acoustics in the classroom. In the episode Signal-to-Noise ratio is mentioned as something to consider when working with students. The following are some other helpful resources about S/N and classroom acoustics:

This website allows you to quickly upload pictures and videos (.mpegs, .mpgs, .mp4, .mov, .avi, .wmv, .jpg’s and more) and then select from a number of free montage styles and music to create a nicely polished, professional looking, special effect ridden video. Once finished, the website generates a URL for your video that can be shared. The website is easy to use and would allow students to be able to create flashy presentations above and beyond just a simple slideshow. Plus, there is nothing to install. All of the controls and design occur right there on the website all for free. The only downside is that only some of the montages and music is free. For access to the complete library you need to become a premium member and pay a fee. Also, to export the video into another file format you need to be premium member. The following are some of the videos I’ve made using this website:

This website allows you to capture a video of whatever is happening on your screen. You can export videos as .swf files (flash) and .mov files, which means you can save the videos right down to your computer. You can choose to record the entire screen or record a rectangular area of the screen. Screentoaster.com is a great way to capture and share what a student has done on a computer and is also a great way to capture any lesson done on the computer. Also, a student could capture work they’ve done on a home computer to share back with teacher. It is also great for making short video tutorials providing directions for how to do something on the computer. Students could watch these videos over and over again as a way to have instructions repeated as many times as necessary.